5.5.4 Replay Equipment

5.5.4.1 Replay equipment must comply with all specific parameters of a given format. Digital tape formats are mostly proprietary in nature, with only one or two manufacturers of suitable equipment. Latest generation equipment is preferred, but for older or obsolete digital formats there may be no choice but to purchase second- hand equipment.

5.5.4.2 The high recording density of R-DAT(Rotary Head Digital Audio Tape) has ensured that applications other than audio-recording-only were developed. The DDS (Digital Data Storage) format, based on DAT technology, was developed by Hewlett-Packard and Sony in 1989 and was dedicated to the storage of computer data. Steady increases in data integrity of the basic system resulted in developments which allow for signal extraction from audio DAT tapes.Various types of software are available which allow the extraction of the audio as separate files based on ID’s on the tape. Dedicated data extraction software can also generate metadata files for each program, including clock, start and end ID positions, durations, file size, audio properties, etc. Additionally the DDS format allows double speed capturing of audio material.

5.5.4.3 Nevertheless, the important questions such as format incompatibilities (e.g. the different long play modes, high resolution recordings, time code extraction etc.), proper data integrity checking, pre-emphasis handling and especially all matters concerning mechanical and tracking problems are still not yet solved by such systems and therefore need individual treatment.